Tauro's 1/35 Fiat 3000
by Eugene Sautin

When Italy entered the war in 1915 on the side of the allies it had no real need for tanks. The fighting was mostly done in the mountains, unsuitable territory for tanks.  Following the introduction of tanks on the Western front Italian Head Quarter decided to test this new means of war. Italy purchased two Schneider CA.1 tanks and three Renault FT-17 from France; in conjunction with this Italy decided too design its own tank,  the Fiat 2000, this venture started on October 1916 and was done privately by Fiat company. By June 1917 the first prototype was made, and the Fiat Company donated two tanks to the army, by the end of the war Fiat made six tanks. The tanks never saw combat, but it is considered one of the best heavy tanks to come out of the war.  As for the tanks that were bought, it was quickly realized the Schneider CA.1 was as good as the guarantees of France and Britain for more territory to the Italians after the war.  The Renault FT-17 on the other hand had good cross-country mobility, so it was chosen to produce it.  

The construction of the copy was done by Fiat but with the assistance of Ansaldo and Breda. Many improvements were done to the tank, a more powerful engine was placed, and it was placed at a lower angle, giving the tank less weight. This resulted in a great increase of speed up to three times (going smoothly 23km/h) the Renault FT-17 speed. New unditching gear was installed, and a more powerful double barreled 6.5 mm MG. The tank had better armor and ammo capacity as well. All these improvements made the copy of the tank a lot better, unlike the Russian attempt to copy the FT-17 into KS-1. But the work went slow; the first prototype was made only in 1920, and it went into limited service in 1921, until the full introduction of the tank in 1923. This was one of the best tanks in the twenties!

This tank was followed by a second version in 1930, which had a better gun (37 mm), more armor, a more powerful engine, and better suspension. This tank participated in the Libyan and Abyssian wars. The last fiat 3000 (s) were used in Sicily were they were un questionably obsolete, the tanks genetic model, the Renault FT-17 was used in street fighting in Paris in 1944, so in this way they suffered the same fate. For more info on the FIAT 3000, click here!

Click on the pictures for an enlarged version!

The kit comes in three green sprues, two big and one with just bottom and top of the tank. The kit also comes with decent decals, rubber band tracks, and simple but good plans. The kit only has 145 pieces. It is also an ideal model for a quick build easily done over a good weekend.  The kit is part of two version so the Fiat 3000, one the 1921 version dealt in this review and the other a 1932 variant, which is a bit out of range from the WWI era modeling.

Building the kit is easy and you can just simply follow the plans and you’ll be done. Take note when making the turret, the fit is a bit off so you might have a small gap to fill. Also I recommend not following the instructions on attaching the exhaust pipe shrouds before the tracks, since it can get in the way of your hands as your working on the track attachment. The shrouds are a bit thick so you should trim them a bit. The wheels should not be glued, so attaching tracks would be easier.

This kit is again well detailed like the Tauro A7V; you get the towing hooks in the front, cross braces on the unditching gear, cooling fins on the machineguns, and very accurate tracks.  The fiat 3000 tracks had holes in each link to better aid cross-country performance on soft ground, and the kit tracks have them! The tracks are also very good, they shape well to all the wheels and look very realistic. The hatch handles are just rectangular solid plastic attached to the tank turret so you need to carefully carve some space in that rectangle to make the hatches look real.

The first and major problem of the kit is that the tracks are too short! So once again Tauro has very good tracks that are plagued by a major problem! So now you are presented with the problem of short tracks you can solve this problem in the manner that suits you best, I just stapled them together, and I am planning to cove that staple with sand or earth when I weather the tank. The distance that the tracks are short, by the way, is exactly one staple length. Be careful when attaching the staple since the tracks are so narrow it’s easy to drive the staple into your hand, so try to use a staple machine but I found that the track gap is bit too big for a regular staple puncher

The whole kit was sprayed with Andrea acrylic field gray that was mixed with Andrea acrylic uniform green, to give it a bit brighter look that the Fiat had compared to the plain German field gray. The kit itself gives some questionable painting instructions that are best avoided; they say spray it with dark-green! The kit gives you three options for the decals and painting. The decals are also questionable and they are very poor. They don’t come of the sheet easily and don’t move once applied to the surface, so I recommend not using them, but if you do prepare the surface with clear gloss first to make it sticky so the decals attach themselves.

As for the markings, they themselves are questionable and its best to consult a source. The guns were painted in gun-metal, the tracks in burnt steel, and the top tank hatch painted in white. Rust is used in the exhaust pipe and exhaust pipe shrouds. I also used some earth color paints to show some mud and dust, but this will be enhanced by real dust and mud when I’ll weather the tank.

You are able to buy this it from most well-stocked firms, including Hannants and Jadar.
 

This is a great kit that is easy and fast to build but is very accurate. The only big problem is the tracks but I think that can be solved. The kit isn’t perfect but nothing is, so I give it the 5 stars.